Boobs. The Femme Den talks about them easily and often — and about the challenges they present to designers. Backpack makers don't seem to have a clue what to do about boobs. Ditto designers of unisex hospital scrubs, famous for their gaping V-necks. "One surgeon told me there wasn't a woman at the hospital whose boobs he hadn't seen," says Femme Den member Whitney Hopkins.

Now

Don't get all worked up by the headline, Sinophiles. We're talking about the 60th birthday of the founding of the People's Republic, which Mao Zedong declared on October 1, 1949. Here's a look at China then and now.

"We were told to trust these institutions, and we did," says Mitch Tuchman. "We trusted Madoff. We trusted AIG. And now we've lost most of our life savings." Tuchman, though, is not an angry victim of some Ponzi scheme or shady subprime lender. To the contrary, the former hedge-fund manager is trying to be part of the solution, starting a company whose goal is to upend the trillion-dollar mutual-fund market by offering cheap, no-nonsense investment advice.

Update

Farhad Manjoo

"I was recently confronted with a personal example of the true cost of free stuff," says Farhad Manjoo, our tech columnist and author of True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society. "I moved to a new apartment and tried to do without cable TV. Here's a tip: Over-the-air broadcasts are no match for San Francisco's hills. After battling bad reception for weeks, I finally gave in and called the cable guy."

Numerology

Don't snicker at the confectionery business: Sales in the $32 billion — plus industry are expected to be up almost 4% this year. Until candy's Christmas arrives on October 31, sate yourselves with these informational bonbons, which, thankfully, can be enjoyed guilt-free.

From the Editor

When you're in the media business, you worry about the cost — and the risk — of creating a new product from scratch each time. Movies, music, magazines: We all share the same challenge. In comparison, the idea of creating the same item — say a can of Coke — over and over can seem kind of simple. But if you think about it a little deeper, you quickly come to the opposite conclusion: If your product never changes, how do you keep it from getting boring? How do you hold onto your territory when new things are constantly emerging to tempt your customer away?